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The plan yesterday was that Jan (aka Granny) would hang out with the kids while Derek and I hiked to J’s Landing.  However, principally because the weather was so wet we wound up hiking on nearby Taylor Mountain – a first for both of us.

Taylor is the first mountain east of Tiger Mountain, accessed via Highway 18.  The route we took was not particularly steep (but far from flat) but we did get in a nice hike through the woods, roughly 5 miles.  Much of it was on a very nice trail, as shown above.

We also ran into a very cute caterpillar:

We didn’t see any other hikers on the way but we did encounter one person on a bike and two people on horses.  For sure, this is a popular area for horses as the evidence of their presence was plentiful.

First hike in several weeks, as Jan and I spent two weeks out of the country.  We flew into London on 8/27, spent a week there, and then flew to Shannon, Ireland, took a bus to Ennis, and there began a Rick Steves ‘Heart of Ireland’ tour.

But now it is back to normal. Schedule to hike tomorrow with Ken and Mike to Diablo Lake – should be great.

I did the Cedar River Watershed Education Center (CRWEC) Old Growth Forest tour again this year – my third time – this time joined by Derek.  We both had a terrific time and boy! what a learning experience.

Once again Clay Antieau led our group – about 18 or 19 of us – in two vans as we drove through the beautiful Cedar River Watershed (from whence originates most of Seattle’s water supply), stopping three times to experience and learn about different aspects of the local old growth forests.

Our first stop was actually a second growth stand, so we could see the differences between second growth and old growth.

One very obvious difference (aside from the size of the trees) between second growth and old growth is the relative lack of undergrowth and the overall lack of diversity in the flora.  The trees are all similar in age and height and only over time will some of them start to outgrow the other trees.

After stopping in the forest to talk about our immediate environment we went a little farther along the trail to a great view point:

Derek and I loved looking north, across Chester Morse Lake (the actual water that will be piped to the people in Seattle) to get a different perspective on some of the peaks we like to hike, like Mount Washington and Greenway Mountain.

We then headed to an old growth stand at about 2,500 feet of elevation:

The difference in the size of the trees and the diversity of the flora was striking.  Clay told us that various plants and animals live exclusively in old growth stands and how intertwined the components of the ecosystem are – to the point where tree roots may meet underground, merge, and send messages (like: I am being eaten by bugs!) via hormones so the trees down the line can take action to fight the threat.

The longest van ride was to a wide spot in the road near Findley Lake, a former site for University of Washington (de-funded in the ’90’s, sadly) researchers studying the area.

Looking across a small ravine Derek and I saw an awesome peak (see photo at the top of this post) that looked like it would be massive fun to try to scramble (alas, it is in the watershed and is off limits).

We all made it to Findley Lake, hiking through a somewhat different stand of old growth, different because of the elevation.  Findley Lake sits somewhere between 3900 and 4000 feet, and that leads to environmental consequences such as a deeper snow pack in the winter.

In the picture above, Clay is in the middle with the cap, closest to the water, Derek is close to the camera looking up and shading his eyes.

This tour was seven hours, 9a to 4p and the time just flew.  These CRWEC tours are uniformly excellent.  By my count I have now done eight of them and I expect to do more next year.

Tomorrow is Sunday and my experience today makes me hungry for a hike!

No photos – too dark – George and his daughter Tina del Campo (visiting her dad and mom from Italy where she lives) and I hit the McClellan Butte trail at about 10:35 pm with the goal of seeing as many meteors as we could.

We went up about 2.3 miles to the talus field you hit as you turn north on the trail.  Here is what it looks like on Google earth, from a 2016 hike all the way to the top (red arrow points to where we were):

We got there about 12:15 and, as our eyes got used to the dark and we settled in we sat back and watched the show.  I would estimate we saw somewhere around 40 or 50 meteors.  We packed up to leave about 2 am.

It was a really fun hike and it is always just a bit spooky traveling through the woods at night.  Those headlamps really work.

I hope to do it again next year and you never know, we just might have some friendly visitors from overseas.

 

Great hike today with Carl.  We did McCllellan Butte from the parking lot, about 10.2 miles, 3,800 feet of elevation gain.  We started up the trail about 6am and were able to beat the worst of the heat.  On the way down we passed a few hikers coming up, looking fairly sweaty.

As always, the views from the top are outstanding:

The photo above, ‘Steep Drop’, shows the consequences of slipping from the summit scramble should you choose to give it a try:

Anyway, the fact that any mistake scrambling up the big rock on the top would result in certain death is a bit of a deal-killer for me, and for Carl as well.

But the hike is a superb workout and the views along the way and at the top are a great payoff for all the effort.

Plus, Carl brought a thermos of coffee and that perked me up (I was exhausted by the time I got to the top, this hike is very steep for a very long way) enough that we fairly flew going down the trail.

Like I say, great hike!

Great hike today.  We (myself, Ken, Mark and Greg) ventured down south to Mount Rainier National Park to hike to Upper Crystal Lake.  The hike itself was relatively moderate, a nice consistent grade almost the entire way on a good trail but the location and the views were first-rate.

We parked on the side of Highway 410 and crossed the street to the trail head:

Not too far up the trail there was a break in the trees and we could see the nearby Mt. Rainier:

Here is a view from way overhead, via Google Earth, of our proximity to Rainier.  Our track is the little blue squiggle on the right; Rainier is pretty obvious:

Crystal Lake sits in a basin surrounded by very impressive mountains:

Just below the lake is another one of those beautiful mountain meadows:

We were up pretty high, in the neighborhood of 5,800 feet +.  Here is what our track looks like on Google Earth:

According to my Garmin the hike was 5.84 miles with 2,263 feet of elevation gain.  Fairly moderate but an outstanding hike nevertheless.

 

Dirk Pettitt and I have been talking about doing a hike for quite some time and today we did.  We met at the Exit 22 Park and Ride a bit before 5:30 am and were on the Ira Spring Trail, heading towards Mason Lake, by about 6:10.  We beat the heat and saw no one else the entire time up to the lake.

If Dirk is taking in the view in the photo above, what is the view?

We had a great time and will do another hike when we can get it planned.  It was just a perfect day and beating the heat on the way up is a huge plus.  Far less mess with sweaty clothes and the fear of cramps later on.

And Mason Lake, as always, was beautiful.

We drove to Lincoln Rock in eastern Washington on Sunday, 7/8 and stayed through about 1pm this afternoon.  On Tuesday, 7/10, Derek and I did something we planned last year when we hiked to Clara and Marion Lakes without hiking boots.

We had seen a couple of peaks high above Marion Lake and thought we could make it to their summits if we came back with proper equipment.  This year we had the equipment and when we got up there we discovered only one of the peaks was accessible.

But what fun going up.  The trail (a snowshoe trail in the winter) begins at the Mission Ridge ski resort.  It is a nice trail, not too steep, and it ends at Marion Lake, which is the second of two lakes that sit at about 5100K elevation – the parking lot is 4500 feet.

From Marion we just went up.  Much of it was on a scree field:

It was hard work, very steep and scree is not easy on your feet.  Eventually the scree turned into larger rocks, many of which were unstable.  It became difficult and dangerous to make progress and for a few minutes we considered turning back.  We just kept slipping, sending rocks tumbling down the mountain, risking life and limb.

However, we did discover a route that was more solid, that eventually turned into something like a forest and from there we made good progress.  We left our backpacks at the point where we started up into the trees so no photos from me (camera was in the backpack and not easy to carry).  Derek took some pix with his phone and if he sends them I will update the post.

The GPS track screwed up and logged not only our hike but our drive to the trail head.  Bummer – no good stats.  However, I was able to load our track into various online tools, such as Google Earth and here are two images.

The first one is an overview of our route.  The second one zooms in on the track from Marion Lake to the summit – the summit of what?  I do not know because no topo map I have found gives it a name.  You would think a 6300 foot + mountain near civilization would have a name but if it does, I have not found it.

We were pumped we made it, it looked almost beyond us from down below:

On the way down, Derek couldn’t resist walking across the same off-trail log he walked across last year.  It is a good 20 foot tumble should you fall:

All in all a wonderful hike/scramble.  We had a goal and we achieved it (something we do not always do) and had just oodles of fun along the way.

UPDATE 7/14/18 – Derek sent some of his photos:

Thanks to Derek for sharing, what a memorable hike!

This past weekend was so much fun.

I babysat all day Friday and when I got home my niece Jaclyn and her husband (my nephew) Jeff were there.  I hadn’t seen them since 2014 – Jeff flies helicopters in the Army up in Alaska and they aren’t able to make it down to Seattle very often – so when Jeff was sent down here for training for a few days we jumped at the chance to spend some time with them.  They stayed with us Friday and Saturday, and we were joined by our grand kids Finley and Camden on Saturday night for a stay over so we had a full and happy house.

The rest of the gang showed up on Sunday for a taco lunch while our dog was swooning in ecstasy with all the people paying attention to her and all the plates to lick.

On Saturday, Jaclyn and Jeff, who are experienced hikers, joined me for a short (about 4 miles) but very steep hike up to J’s Landing.  We were pretty dry on the way up but as we were sitting on the landing, enjoying the view, the clouds rolled in (see above – 10 minutes earlier the clouds were in the distance so they were moving pretty fast) and we got pretty wet on the way down.

Still plenty of fun and I hope we can do it again, without waiting another four years.

Derek and I did an overnight backpacking trip – I left my camera with him and did not retrieve it until this past Friday, 6/29 (and then had a massively busy weekend, see next trip report) so no report until today – on Saturday, 6/23 into Sunday, 6/24.  Above is a view from just south of where we pitched our tents on Songbird Peak.

It was a great trip and we are already planning our next one.  And we learned that we were carrying too much weight.  My total load was about 40 pounds – try being an old man carrying a load like that up mountains.  Ugh.

We started up the Mt. Washington main trail about 5pm.  We went east at the Great Wall connector, shared the Olallie bike trail for a short way and then went up to Change Peak.

From there we went back down to the Great Wall and, since it was getting late, made our way south, then east, then north again to Songbird Peak.  Here is the peak, with McClellan Butte in the distance, from the Great Wall:

After camping on Songbird we got up early – sunrise on a mountain! – and headed back west to hit Mt. Washington via Great Wall route.

Sunday was so clear and beautiful.  We made our way back east to pack up our camp and then stashed our huge backpacks in the brush while we headed east to try to hit Chester Peak.  No luck – the route we had picked via Google Earth turns out to be in the ‘no trespassing’ area of the Cedar River Watershed so we turned back.

Derek went up Greenway and, farther west, a no-name peak that looks like this when viewed from the north:

Lots of gorgeous plant life around and the Bear Grass is blooming these days:

Between the amazing sunrise and the amazing sunset we reveled in our experience:

Total for the 2 days was over 6,800 feet of elevation gain and 22 miles, 15 on Sunday.  I admit I was almost completely exhausted towards the end.  We went down the Mt. Washington main trail and on the last mile I was reeling and stumbling along, my legs having long since given out.

So next time, as I say, we will learn and will both lighten and consolidate our loads.  Once we get all of that worked out we will be heading out for longer outings.

Living in the back country is the greatest fun!

I didn’t update the blog for my hikes on Tuesday (6/12) on Tolt Pipeline and Thursday (6/14) on the Section Line with Ken.  I note them here just for the end-of-year count.

Rather an eventful solo hike yesterday.

I was scheduled to babysit Camden in the late afternoon, because everyone but us was going to a concert at the zoo by a group called Violent Femmes.  I wanted to start later than usual so I didn’t finish too early (the hike and the babysitting are not all that far apart); thus, I started up the trail about 8:30 am.  My plan was to hike Zig Zag and then go up to Truck Summit.

Sounds early, perhaps, but the temps approached 90 yesterday and the Zig Zag is ultra-steep.  I completely soaked two head bands by the time I got to the top of the Zig Zag so I pitched the idea of going to the truck.  I turned left to go down the service road which would take me back to IHT, etc.

I was done, I thought, with elevation gain.

About a mile down the service road I started hearing gunshots.  Lots of them.  I knew people brought guns out there – illegally – to shoot them but I had never been out there when the bullets were flying.  I absolutely did not want to turn around and chug back up the service road I had just come down but I also did not want to walk into gunfire.  So I turned around.

There is not enough budget to staff the back country to police this kind of behavior, and there are vicious idiots a-plenty in the world so I am not sure what to do.

Otherwise, it was a great day.

There are plenty of sights along this trail, which in spite of its unofficial status, is in pretty good shape.  It is just so steep!

About 2,200 feet of elevation gain and 5.75 miles.  A strange hike, I certainly never planned to go down the NF9021 service road partway and then back up but when the bullets are flying, I do think the best policy is to steer clear.